The Advantages and Disadvantages of Accepting Card Payments

In a digital currency age it is very rare to come across a business that regularly sends and receives payments for goods or services and doesn‚Äôt accept card payments. Whilst most believe card payments to be the way forward with transactions because of the numerous advantages, it should be noted that there are some drawbacks. If your company is still operating using cash or cheque only transactions you may want to consider to following advantages and disadvantages to adopting a Chip and Pin service.

Advantages

First and foremost as previously stated, we live in a digital currency age where most people would be completely bewildered to find a business that doesn‚Äôt accept card payments. It has become somewhat of an international cultural norm to be able to pay for anything using a chip and pin service. Therefore by having this available you are being a forward thinking business owner and responding to the customer‚Äôs preference.

If a customer is able to pay by card they are more likely to spend more money on impulse purchases. By not having to hand over any physical currency the customer forgets what they are spending.

If you are unable to accept any card payments customers will have to go out and find an ATM and depending on how far away it is, they may not come back for their purchase. In the long term they may decide it is not worth their time to have to travel to withdraw money before visiting your business and so will go to your competitors.

By accepting card payments you will not only be able to get more customers in store but also online and over the phone as they can make immediate payments. This is a great and sustainable way to expand your customer base in a short amount of time.

Cash flow is important for any business and if you are only accepting cash and cheques your businesses account will have to wait days before any money can be deposited. This can mean that you may have insufficient funds to make essential outgoing payments that keep your business afloat. With accepting card payments, the money goes directly into your business account almost immediately.

As an extension of this, it is also a lot safer for your business to not keep large amounts of cash on the premises. If people are aware that you do not accept card payments and therefore have cash in the till you will become an immediate target. It also puts your staff at risk and they may feel uneasy working at your establishment as a result.

Card payments are much easier to track than accepting cash at your till. When it comes to admin it takes a lot more time to calculate monetary transactions and making sure everything is accounted for than to add up card payments. It also means that anyone on your property can‚Äôt access to large amounts of cash from your till.

Disadvantages

Whilst accepting card payments can be great for your business financially you must also bear in mind that there are costs involved in doing so. Before choosing to accept card payments you should look around at different providers and their charges.

By accepting card payments you are exposing yourself to fraud and you may have to take measures such as giving your staff training on what to look out for with fraudsters.

In order to accept certain cards you must first have an agreement in place with that company which is another expense and complication to the process.

As part of this transition you will have to train your staff of how to process card payment and all the technical aspects of using chip and pin machines.

Whilst there are some drawbacks to accepting card payments, if you are a business that regularly accepts payment for services or goods, you are ultimately going to suffer in the long term without card payments.